


coco cabana thursday night specials

by verbanski



Series: sarah meet sara [4]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Chuck (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 07:41:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2261460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verbanski/pseuds/verbanski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>creative apologies because saying sorry is surprisingly harder than hiding a body</p>
            </blockquote>





	coco cabana thursday night specials

At best, it’s a damn stupid idea. At worst it’s a regression into weakness she was supposed to have eradicated years ago.

But here she is, at some dive bar in some tiny ass town that’s somewhere in New Jersey because that’s how far she makes it on her bike before her butt starts hurting from sitting for so long. Coincidentally, it’s also the moment her tank dips past the quarter mark, so really, it’s as good a place to stop as any.

In her defense, Sara didn’t have any set destination in mind after she bolted out of Starling City. She didn’t plan this and if Coco Cabana happens to have a bottomless Long Island special going on this lovely Thursday evening, that’s certainly not her fault either; it’s not like Sara’s going to refuse half-priced tamales just because of some menial sense of pride.

The food goes down easy and the alcohol even easier, although after the second or third mini pitcher she’s had, Sara’s pretty sure they’re not so much Long Islands as they are whatever alcohol they’re trying to get rid of in a pinch with a generous splash of grenadine to bring all of it together.

It takes her until about somewhere around the middle of her fifth one before she starts to loosen up, starts to let her guard down. That’s probably why when Minh the Bartender starts his shift and takes a look at Sara’s tab, she accepts the double of whiskey without thinking twice about it.

He asks her who she’s trying to forget after she takes a sip and she shrugs half heartedly, realizing that she truly doesn’t know.

She thinks about it, tries to dredge up all the memories she’s put to rest over the years. It’s a fruitless endeavor that leaves her just as clueless as when she started. “Maybe I’m trying to remember,” she tells him instead, because at this point, she’s starting to think she’s gotten too good at forgetting.

Case-in-point is when she doesn’t even notice when she emptied her glass.

Sara can’t remember the last time the edges of the world became fuzzy from too much alcohol – she does remember a number too clearly, one she shouldn’t know by heart because it’s not saved in her phone for a reason.

Vaguely, somewhere in the back of her mind, she also remembers knocking back another double and then why they always told her to avoid drinking on the job.

 

 

 

 

Sara comes to in a hotel room that’s a far cry from the worst she’s ever been in. It’s a little cramped, plain but clean from what she can tell and she slept on the little chocolate they leave on top of pillows last night.

it still looks like it’s dark if that’s a window to the outside which makes sense since she makes out something like 4AM on the digital clock that’s sitting on the dresser. Her eyes take a moment longer than usual to adjust, the world still rightfully fuzzy, and the watch reflecting that annoying green clock light isn’t helping either and –

(there’s a watch. oh. oh _shit_ , there’s a watch.)

“Really? Whiskey and tamales?”

(shit, shit, shit.)

“In my defense,” Sara barely manages to croak out before she’s just cut off.

“Long Islands and half-priced tamales are not a defense.”

“Are they if they tasted fantastic?”

“Are you _feeling_ fantastic?”

The throbbing in her head says _haaaale no_ , and the other Sarah in her hotel room that Sara doesn’t know how she got into seems to agree.

 

 

 

 

They make it through the complimentary breakfast in a mutual silence, mostly because Sarah doesn’t want to talk to Sara and, well, Sara doesn’t really want to talk to anyone right now.

The only words they’ve exchanged past their less than warm greeting was over Sara’s bike and she was content to leave well enough alone as soon as she found out it was safely tucked away in the hotel garage. She didn’t have to ask where they are, she knows they’re in New York City now after noticing a brochure in the lobby.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” is question one out of twenty that gets fired out once they cross the threshold into the room – alas, all good things must come to an end eventually.

“I wasn’t?” Sara answers flippantly, hoping that maybe, _just_ maybe, if she ticks Sarah off enough she’ll storm off in a huff and never look back.

(no such luck)

“Clearly, because six Long Islands and god knows how many shots of whiskey prove your brain doesn’t even handle self preservation too well.”

And, okay, granted that is a lot but it’s not like Sara chugged all that at once and it’s not like she was drinking on an empty stomach, even _she’s_ not that daft.

“Did you really just come here to yell at me for not waiting an hour in between drinks or something? I hope you’re gonna see the M&M factory or something because otherwise you just wasted a lot of frequent flyer miles.”

Somewhere between the retort falling off her tongue and when Sarah pins her up against the wall with her forearm on Sara’s throat is when she begins to really regret her nasty habit of speaking before thinking. Sara definitely regrets it in its entirety when Sarah puts a very specific amount of weight on a very specific pressure point and knocks her out shortly thereafter.

 

 

 

 

 

“you called me”

“i gathered as much”

“you said you had to leave starling city”

“yeah, about that –“

“you said you couldn’t do it anymore”

“i say a lot of stupid shit, it’s not like it means much”

“you asked to see me”

“look i was drunk, you had to have known that i –”

“you said you missed me”

 

 

 

 

There’s two tickets in business class seats on a 7:15 plane to Rome and they don’t talk anymore because Sarah doesn’t really want to talk to Sara and it’s not like Sara knows what there is to say now.

She follows Sarah’s lead without question, decides to tag along for however long it takes for her to feel less guilty about a drunk dial gone horribly or when she finds something close to the right words to say. It leads her to a tinted Mercedes with a burly driver that seems more fit to keep creeps out of a club than sitting in a car that’s probably too small for him. The driver leads to a speedboat that Sarah navigates to a dock in Venice by memory, and Sarah leads them to another hotel that lines one of the more populated streets close to the center square.

Sara has nothing to unpack because she didn’t bring anything with her when she left and there wasn’t much time in between the other night and this afternoon to do any shopping. She opts to take a shower because she’s starting to feel gross with this whirlwind finally given time to catch up to her.

The room is empty when she comes out again, Sarah’s suitcase is perched on the edge of the bed unopened and there’s a blank envelope with a few hundred euros, a fake passport, and a credit card inside, sitting on top of it.

She takes it for what it is, indulges in the city she loves but hasn’t seen in too long, tries to forget about how she ended up here to begin with.

 

 

 

 

 

Words fail Sara more often than not.

It’s why her apology is in the form of a royal blue dress that would make that man-child boyfriend of Sarah’s forget how to breathe on the spot; it’s a small concession she makes in favor of fixing whatever in between them that she broke earlier.

These things are temporary fixes, they almost always are.

She knows she can’t just fix everything in between them with a fancy dress that she could have easily bought for herself but she thinks the point is that she’s trying. It sounds like a lame excuse to her own ears, except Sara is willing to look the other way on this point since this is the only way she knows how to even begin to attempt to fix things.

Sara’s already awful at saying sorry and Sarah just makes everything even more screwy without even trying.

 

 

 

 

 

Sara is sitting down at the café in the farthest corner of the square when it’s night time, one that’s away from the middle with all the people and only speaks Italian so most tourists pass it up in favor of somewhere they can order fettuccini alfredo without thinking too hard.

Next to the bag with Sarah’s dress sitting at her feet are three other ones of various sizes with enough clothes to last her for at least a week, so today is categorized into the ‘win’ section of her mental tally.

She’s about to order the lamb chops when she catches a familiar sway of blonde hair that gives Sarah away, who promptly gives up on subtlety afterwards to occupy the seat across from her.

“I hope you left some money over to pay for dinner,” she comments, eying the bags skeptically. “I probably should have left you instructions to spend more conservatively.”

(for that, she asks for a bottle of fairly pricey red wine to go with dinner)

“I’m more interested in what was so important that you were willing to leave me alone with some government plastic in Venice.”

At this, Sarah’s expression hardens, eyes narrowing ever so slightly when she reveals that it wasn’t a government credit card she entrusted Sara with. Rather, it was her own personal one because technically, Sara’s not supposed to be present while Sarah is dealing with a human smuggling ring Chuck, aka man-child boyfriend, tipped them off to.

Sara has the decency to look a little sheepish at that, offering a too full glass of wine and quickly adding in the dress she picked out for her as an apology just as their food arrives. She counts herself lucky that she knows vintage Bordeaux and plunging necklines are amongst the top ways to distract a pissed off Sarah Walker.

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner is all the things that breakfast wasn’t, the two somehow managing to find conversational pieces that don’t directly involve their dubious line of work.

Sarah tells her some story about Chuck learning a bunch of the most mundane skills after downloading some huge update to the computer in his head. Apparently, they found out his new skillset includes rhythmic gymnastics just as much as hand-to-hand combat one day at some boardwalk festival in Santa Monica when Morgan volunteers Chuck for a hulahooping contest. He didn’t win the contest but he did do an impressive 2008 Yevgeniya Kaneyeva Olympic routine.

In turn, Sara volunteers the rather uneventful story about how she ended up settling in Starling City as a bartender at a nightclub run by a nineteen-year-old and Sarah tells her she’s a shitty one if she thinks Long Islands are supposed to be doused in grenadine and they kind of end up where they started this whole thing at.

Sure, they’re laughing at it but the lightheartedness they worked up to takes a pretty noticeable exit for the rest of the meal.

Despite that, the boat doesn’t seem to be rocked too much because Sarah takes the check and tips generously once they’re done eating. They haven’t left the café yet, opting to sip on some coffee to stay outside a while longer and listen to the men that have started playing music in the square.

Sara steals a moment to take in the other woman she knows too well and not at all – all hard lines and soft hair that’s tied back in a loose ponytail today, an old college t-shirt she doesn’t recognize under a worn blazer she does, pale washed holey jeans that aren’t factory made ending in still-new red low tops she must have spent the day breaking in.

“I’m sorry,” she says without even realizing she’s said it out loud. Sara’s about to apologize when Sarah simply offers her a sad, sad smile and nods before returning her attention to the men.

Suddenly, Sara wants to say more, to come up with something to get her attention again and keep it. It’s selfish, she knows, but it’s her wont and she wouldn’t be herself if she didn’t try to do something selfish when this would be better left alone. Sara racks her brain for anything, skittering past _need_ , _miss_ , and _want_ because when she’s about to say any of them, she remembers how Sarah looked that other night that got her into this mess and she thinks better of it.

In the end, Sara comes up empty handed; she can’t find anything that’s right and everything that’s wrong would cost her too much to say right now. She lets herself get lost in the soft melody that’s lingering in the air, lost in the person she knows and the one she doesn’t, lost in anything that’s not her brain that’s yelling at her to do something stupid for the umpteenth time.

 

 

 

 

 

“i’m sorry”

“you said that already”

“i know but – for everything, i’m sorry”

“you can’t just fix everything with nice dresses and i'm sorry’s”

“yeah but i just, i don’t know how else i’m supposed to fix this”

“maybe that’s because there’s nothing to fix”

“you can’t be serious”

“you were last time, weren’t you”

 

 

 

 

 

“He wanted me to be someone I’m not,” Sara offers as a way of explanation.

Because it’s true.

She only knows what she is because he wanted her to fit into some perfect mold of what she isn’t and when push came to shove, she broke it without hesitation. Sara could fit into what he wanted her to be but it would never be who she is – she’s far too damaged to be that and it’s something she never realized she already accepted a long time ago.

This is more selfish bullshit she’s pulling but she can’t bring herself to care anymore. She just needs to say what she has to say for once, all of it.

“I couldn’t do that, I couldn’t keep lying.”

Sarah has a life to get back to, one that doesn’t include Sara ever since she walked away to do what she thought was right. It’s a good one that isn’t anything to complain about, even if it does include feigning attraction to a man-child in the package. She doesn’t have time to keep letting Sara have her way when she throws one of these stupid tantrums but it’s a bad habit, the same way Sara can’t stop being so god damn selfish to save her life.

 

 

 

 

Sara should have left well enough alone.

It’s just _you’re the only one who knows_ tumbles out of her mouth before she can stop it and after it’s out there in the open, it’s not like Sara can take it back no matter how badly she wants to.

She wants to let Sarah walk away, leave her behind and quit coming back because people aren’t yoyos and they aren’t toys.

But it’s true, it’s the only truth she knows with absolute certainty ten times out of ten. Sara knows it better than she knows herself most the time and if there’s one thing she’s learned over the years that made her, it’s that you hold onto the truth.

(you take it, you keep it, you _hold on_ )


End file.
